


wings to fly

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: But maybe, just maybe — and it was this selfish part of her that wondered — he could hand her son the knife, and Keith would ask himself (perhaps) what it meant; the only meaningful thing left of his mother, a weird weapon with round letters over the blade.





	wings to fly

**Author's Note:**

> pain. everything is pain  
> i intend to write a way bigger mother-son keith & krolia somewhere in the future, with all of my FEELS and THEORIES and ANGRY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WRITERS OF VOLTRON AND THE LACK OF ANY GOOD CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WHATSOEVER but i just wanted to do this small tribute to my broken heart. please enjoy

sleep now, my angel, and rest your eyes.

mommy must say her last goodbyes.

_please don't be sad, and please don't cry._

_mommy will give you the wings to fly._

if you don't want to say goodbye,

mommy will watch you and stand by your side.

life is not fair, but please understand

mommy's not far, I'm holding your hand.

james p. graham

 

Krolia looked at her son, who were sleeping curled around the space-themed blanket that she got for his second birthday, breathing quietly on his small bed. She didn’t want to get him a crib while she was pregnant, since someone told her that buying it too soon could kill the baby. She got so nervous, almost had a panic attack — she just couldn’t risk it. When he was born, she was holding him in her arms while her husband went out, under the rain, trying to buy something where the baby — Keith — could sleep on.

(It happened three years, five months, two weeks, three days and — she stopped to look at the clock on the wall — eleven hours before this moment).

She liked to keep score. As a warrior, during her teenage years, she made the whole universe her rival to best. Those days were long gone, though. Krolia left, as did a lot of her friends; they all ended up exiled along the way. She went to Earth, a primitive planet, and had a baby.

She had a fucking _baby._

“Mama?” her son muttered, only half awake. She could stay silent and everything could be the same; wasn’t it such a lovely dream? In her heart, though, she knew she couldn’t. Krolia was running out of time, and the walls of her borrowed little life were closing around her lungs.  

“My angel”, she said to him, trying to keep her voice very even. When she was a child, living in the Delta quadrant, it was way easier to pretend that the only feeling you could possibly have was pure rage. Not just because it was hard, growing up in that desert; it was also about the way the other children would look at her. She was smaller than them, and an outsider. Krolia had been born at the Capitol, daughter of people who used to be more than what they ended up being. “What are you doing awake?”

“Mama.” he repeated, and extended his little hand as if trying to touch her. She walked to him, because what kind of mother denies her own child something like this? Touched his face, that were still round, and looked at his eyes, that were exactly like hers in all measurements that existed in the world.

In the universe.

 _Oh, my child,_ she thought, _if only I had the time to show you how big life can be…_

“Hush, my love. What is wrong?”

“There is a monster”, he told her, his voice very low. “under my bed.”

She smiled, comforted by the knowledge that her son was still a baby, just a baby, safe for demands like army and death and pointless wars, “I looked there just now. Didn’t you see?”

“I did!” Keith lied, and she laughed. Of course he would do something like that; he was so much like her.

Krolia handed him his stuffed rabbit, that fell to the ground during all the turning he did while sleeping. Keith were always such a terrible sleeper; Krolia spent all his first year like a zombie, running into furniture and napping over her lunch. “Mama’s here.”

He blinked, too sleepy to talk much. She knew that he would be asking what she was doing there, lurking in the shadow’s of his bedroom — as if keeper of a terrible secret —, if he was just a little older than this. Five, maybe six. Or even before, because he was the smartest kid she ever knew.

(And they were _a lot_ , because Krolia’s mother was a doctor).

She remembered the days of her pregnancy, when she would hate so much everything about that stupid planet, the weather, the noises, the clothing, and, above it all, the weird, tasteless food. She longed for the comfort of home, that first few months. The urge to cry was the most terrible part, because Krolia didn’t have anyone else to tell her what was normal, and she thought she was becoming less Galra with every small second that _stranger_ spent inside her.

(He wasn’t like her. He just _couldn’t_ be).

But then, one day, Keith kicked her. He just, like. Literally _kicked her_ right in the ribs _._ All breath left her lungs and Krolia thought, finally, _This asshole must be my child because otherwise I’ll kill them._ And, suddenly, just like that, she realized that she was now a mother.

(What a terrifying thought).

Krolia left the knife over the table. Her husband would know what it meant.

Hopefully, he would also know that he should never, ever talk to Keith about her.

(But maybe, just maybe — and it was this selfish part of her that wondered — he could hand her son the knife, and Keith would ask himself — perhaps — what it meant; the only meaningful thing left of his mother, a weird weapon with round letters over the blade).

“Hush, my baby.” she told him, breathing deeply, trying to keep everything under control. Out there, in the desert, Krolia could hear the sound of her people coming for her. “You should sleep now.”

“Mama?”

It’s the good choice, she thought. It’s the _only_ one. “Yes, angel?”

Earth wouldn’t ever be safe; she had been kidding herself, trying to believe in the bubble her husband made for her, that they were so far, so small, why would the Galra even bother in coming _there_?

She realized, though, a little later, that her son’s life wasn’t a thing to gamble with.

“Can you sing to me?”

“Uh?”

“That one with the pretty words.”

 _Oh,_ she breathed. _He thinks our language_ —

“Oh, angel, of course.” Krolia touched her son’s face. “I would do anything for you. Anything at all.”

 

(later, when he was sleeping, the wind angry and loud, krolia looked behind — only once, half her body inside the ship — and stared at the window of her baby’s bedroom, thought about all the terrible things he would tell himself about her (all of them, even the ones that wouldn’t be true, but that she would deserve all the same) and then,

just then,

she let herself cry)


End file.
